The Self Represented Litigant

Hello, my name is Cheryl Kelmar, and I'm going to read my article, um, on Substack, The Self-Represented Litigant and Artificial Intelligence. Let's look at the following topics that face a self-represented litigant in the era of AI. As AI becomes more usable for legal research, organizing facts, understanding terminology, drafting motions, and locating authorities. More people who normally could not access the court because they could not afford the cost of an attorney set at $350 to $450 an hour are now able to represent themselves. However, I argue in my book, The Judge's Oath, that our legal system needs to be reformed because it no longer works for the common man. Important barrier topics include experts in discovery, settlement, and the attorney conflict of interest, the American Legislation Exchange Council, ALEC, judicial bias, the courtroom, financial burden, and digital forensics.

Experts and just experts in discovery.

Many experts do not work with self-represented litigants, and generally the costs of experts have elevated prices for their work. For example, the cost for a deposition is now almost $3,000 for a day, which cannot be avoided.

It is required to have a court recorder give your witness the oath and then certify the video or transcript.

Therefore, if a self-represented litigant cannot access experts for their case their case probably won't be successful depending on the causes of action. Settlement and the attorney conflict of interest. The problem is if the attorney settles for a reasonable payout, they don't get to line their pockets with the insurance money for litigation. The attorney must litigate to make money versus settling for their client. For a lesser amount. The conflict makes settlement almost impossible. The American Legislation Exchange Council—ALEX— is an organization that has been pushing for legislation to deprive the common man with access to our courts in many ways, such as removal of the right to a jury trial, removal of the right to discovery, removal of the right to elect judges, Tort reform against injured Americans, guns, prison, crime, and immigration, worker and consumer rights.

Guns, prisons, crime, and immigration, worker and consumer rights, and the use of a lifetime government defamation to remove access to the court for the self-represented litigant by deeming them vexatious. It is used to stop a person from litigating when they cannot pay a security deposit of $15,000 The standard is that they only have to lose 5 cases in 7 years, even small claims cases. In 2011, California's government defamation statute against the self-represented, CCP 391, was perverted to a dangerous degree. In contrast to past legal precedent, CCP 391 now includes small claims cases dismissed without prejudice, which means a plaintiff can sue the same parties for the same causes of action within the statute of limitation. In other words, it means a plaintiff probably met their legal burden versus dismissed with prejudice. Repeatability was changed to 1 from 12 to 20, and evidence is routinely ignored and hidden from the court docket, i.e., hidden from the public. Plaintiffs are punished and damaged for life simply for using the court just as much as the wealthy would. Judicial bias. One of the most persistent issues is that judges, attorneys, and court personnel view self-represented litigants as less credible, less prepared, more emotional, more likely to waste court time. Even when a self-represented litigant presents a legally sound argument, The court interprets procedural mistakes more harshly.

I argue that currently the bias against a self-represented litigant by the judicial is profound in favor of the well-connected attorneys. I provide examples on my website www.thejudgesoath.com. The judges do the work for the attorneys, they lie for them, they ignore and hide evidence for them, and they pervert the law for them. They also allow the well-connected attorney to lie boldly with no evidence. For example, attorney Stephen Jacobson argues that I have been domiciled in Oregon since 2023 with no evidence. But why would he lie so boldly knowing that this is untrue? His clients, the Bergs, even state on their TikTok account that I've come and gone and monitor me 24/7. With a camera 24 feet high on their garage so they know the truth when it is so easy to prove false, unless they think the judges are in their pocket and they can boldly lie with no consequence. So how do—

can we expect to win?

It appears that today the role of the judges is to ensure that the attorneys make money. Suspecting that the judges get paid under the table for their biased opinions, The courtroom.

Challenges include examining witnesses, objecting properly, preserving the record, responding under pressure, reading juries, knowing when not to argue, and handling questioning. A person could have an excellent AI-generated brief and still struggle in live proceedings. Financial burden. The financial burdens placed against the self-represented litigant generally are overwhelming. They face a well-funded opponent with multiple attorneys, paralegals, investigators, expert witnesses, and more. And this is the reason the divide between the have versus have-nots has widened to a dangerous degree. In real estate, the way the system is set up is that if you are a realtor or a seller and are sued as defendants by buyers who were ripped off The realtors and sellers, as defendants, receive help by their insurance company as defendants, but the buyer receives no help as a plaintiff, and 95% of real estate lawsuits are filed by buyers. The common man no longer has redress against the well-connected. Abuse can be rampant, and yet they are the ones punished if they attempt to ask our court for help to resolve the matter peacefully. False arguments about AI. One attorney's, Aaron Hisle's, argument against a self-represented litigant was that they might invent a deposition with AI, which is not valid because one has to hire a court recorder to administer the oath and to certify your video recording and transcript for it to be admissible in court. Of course, he made this argument to create hardship for the litigant who cannot afford an attorney and the cost of litigation. The well-connected attorney knows that depositions in person are almost 3 times the price of remote depositions because you do not have to pay for a conference room or hotel, transportation, and more. Digital forensics in the era, era of AI. As AI rapidly advances, I argue that digital forensics has become one of the most important important disciplines in modern litigation. Artificial intelligence is now capable of generating highly convincing photographs, videos, audio recordings, emails, text messages, contracts, and other digital documents. Because of these technological advances, courts should no longer assume that digital evidence is authentic simply because it appears genuine.

I contend that digital forensic experts will become increasingly indispensable in authenticating evidence presented in court. Their work extends far beyond simply recovering deleted files. Modern forensics analysis can determine whether photographs have been altered, whether videos have been edited, whether screenshots have been fabricated, whether audio recordings have been manipulated, and whether documents were created or modified by AI or other software. Metadata often provides the most reliable evidence available, which include file creation dates, modification histories, GPS coordinates, device identifiers, operating system logs, cloud synchronization records, browser histories, Deleted files and user activity logs frequently reveal that are impossible to determine merely by looking at the document itself. Further, digital forensics can expose selective editing, hidden alterations, deleted communications, manipulated timelines, fabricated screenshots, synthetic voices, and AI-generated deep fake videos.

As AI continues to improve, distinguishing authentic evidence from fabricated evidence will increasingly require professional forensic analysis. Digital forensic is equally important in recovering evidence that parties claim have been deleted—emails, text messages, financial records, cloud data, mobile phone contents. Surveillance recordings and deleted computer files are often recoverable through proper forensic examination. In many cases, the attempt to destroy evidence may itself become powerful evidence. A party has the burden of preserving evidence once they know a lawsuit is imminent. It is a crime to engage in evidence spoilage. Self-represented litigants should educate themselves about digital forensics before filing suit. Experts vary greatly in qualifications, specialties, and cost. Some specialize in computers, others in mobile phone devices, cloud storage, financial records, surveillance systems, or video authentication. Prices vary widely, making it essential to compare credentials, experiences, and fees before retaining an expert. For the self-represented litigant, AI will increasingly open doors for the self-represented litigant. With the responsibility of ensuring that cases, rules, evidence, and facts that AI provides are correct. Thank you, and please hit the subscribe button on my Substack, and have a great day.